


At A Crossroads

by Zhisanin



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Gen, divine intervention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9490652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhisanin/pseuds/Zhisanin
Summary: Ulis was there with the messenger - but so was Salezheio.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trismegistus (Lebateleur)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/gifts).



> Dear Tris, I took your prompt and ran with it, as you encouraged. I hope not too far, and you will enjoy this small piece of chocolate in your box!

Ulis was there with the messenger - but so was Salezheio.

Ulis pushed the boy off the rain-slick stones of the steep and narrow path again and again; twice the child fell, but stood, cursing and praying in turn, and kept on climbing. The third time he lost his footing altogether, staggered off the road, and only a thornbush caught him. Her cries did more harm than good; the wind whipped rain into his face, cutting like blades.

 _Turn back,_ she hissed into the boy's ear. _Death is waiting for you up there._ But he didn't listen.

True, he was bound to die in the mountain fortress one way or another, and the long fall would have been mercifully swift. There was no judgment: Ulis, indifferent and cold Ulis, only reached for what was his already.

Only, this time the fate wasn't sealed yet.

Cstheio Caireizhasan never acted, never changed how the lines of destiny unfolded, then twisted around, under, over one another to bind possibility into reality. But her dreams held them all - and in the course of the stars there lay a different future still open for the messenger, and through him for many others.

Eshoravee was where the paths diverged.

Salezheio was whom he called to.

The Duke Tethimel received his message. The weave of lives unraveled, the strands coiled together into one tight knot. Everything teetered on a needlepoint. Between goddess and god the boy had life and death waiting for him to tip over the balance with an unwitting wave of his hand.

He spent a minute too long in the bathhouse; the servant girl who could and would have shown him the way hurried back into the kitchens to hide when she heard the lords' laughter. After a momentary indecision at a corner he turned to the wrong direction. He didn't listen to the cries of the wind in the alcoves. He was _lost_ already when Eshevis Tethimar took interest in him.

But he didn't know that, so he fought; he drew blood and his desperation forced the balance back to mid-point. Then he ran, in a blind panic, bumping into walls and closed doors, losing borrowed time. He called to the goddess again, but was beyond hearing her voice in reply, so she summoned the wind to whip the smoke and the stench of blood towards him; that would be understood. He instinctively turned away from it, away from the open yard, in through the first door he found open, creaking in the drafts. A gust of wind closed it securely behind him.

He spent the night huddled beside a chimney for warmth, terrified and trembling. The balance was shifting again, slowly; Ulis' mold already took root in the messenger's lungs, and the paths still ran merged together, in one direction only.

 _He belongs to me,_ Salezheio thought, and it was true and false at the same time.

 _Then keep him an thou canst,_ Ulis replied. _He bears my mark already: in the_ end _he shall come to me willingly. Time does not matter._

_It does to him. Bridges are built slowly._

The boy was feverish by the time he reached Puzhvarno; soon he lay all but unconscious, tossing and turning between excruciating fits of coughing. Yet he never stopped fighting, stubborn as only a fifteen-year-old might be, one who has no idea what life is but wants it nevertheless.

After his fever finally broke he asked the woman who tended to him about the other lady, the white-clad one, who came to his bed only at nights, when his fever climbed higher and higher. Sometimes he called her by the name of his mother, sometimes of a goddess, but he prayed to her for relief all the same - then she would caress his forehead lightly, her touch cool like the refreshing breeze on a summer day, her whispered reply too low, too soft to understand but tranquil and hopeful all the same.

The sullen woman told him there was no one else but whomever his feverish dreams had conjured, and he should be thankful for what he got as it is. And indeed he was unable to recall the lady's features or her soothing words anymore; all he remembered was her concerned, wind-colored eyes and something that might have been her thick braids, her cloak folded over itself on her shoulder - or a pair of soft, broad wings resting behind her back.


End file.
